It was the
best of pranks, it was the worst of pranks, it was the season of the NHL
playoffs, it was the season of Mayoral gambling, the Ottawa Senators had nothing
before them, the Buffalo Sabres were two up with three home games before them,
one city was betting chicken wings, one city was betting beavertails, and
we called them to up the ante. How far could we take it?

It
was Monday, two days before deadline and we were emptyhanded. This is the
wretched, unglamorous decrescendo of a BEAST publishing cycle: Work
feverishly, on pure chemical stimulation, for two or three sleepless nights
before the paper goes to print to get the issue out; then, blow almost the
entire proceeding fortnight before the next edition without committing so
much as a keystroke. It’s not a pleasant feeling by any means, but humans
are easily inured to hardship—especially the kind mitigated by days of self-deluding
idleness.

Oh, you get ideas.
And you’re fairly determined to see them through. Eventually. It’s like cruising
a bar—the muse is always better looking when she’s dark and distant. Wait
too long to make your approach, and before you know it, it’s closing time.
She’s it. And she’s hideous. For the odd BEASTer who doesn’t smoke
or—for medical reasons—ingest caffeine, this precipitates some pretty gruesome
physical unpleasantness. Rather than expel the frenzy in a mad, alchemic creative
dash, it all turns inward.

Such was the
plight of once promising and now rapidly aging BEAST intern Paul Jones.
May 8th found me in the midst of a creative slump only Cubs fans
and students of Tony Danza’s film career could appreciate. Seated at Paul
Fallon’s dining room table, under the Publisher’s watchful eye, I did my best
to project confidence and industry, tapping my keyboard rapidly. But I was
getting nowhere and the pressure was mounting. Swaths of pimples were in a
rolling boil, in various stages of purulent hideousness, across my forehead.

“How’s it going?”
Fallon asked.

“Okay. I’m working
on some things,” I lied, my voice nearly cracking.

Just then, an
instant message from intrepid BEAST Art Director Ian Murphy flashed
at the bottom of my screen. He was sending me a sound file…

Chapter
1: We
Called to Lust

After
his recollections of three
failed prank attempts were published in our last issue, Beast Art Director
Ian Murphy was determined to ease the sting by pulling off something reasonably
successful. As usual, he decided to perpetrate the first thought that entered
his nasty head. That thought: Call Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown posing as his
Ottawan counterpart, Bob Chiarelli; the shtick: raising the so-far friendly
playoff wager between the cities to include a good old fashioned wife swap.

It was, per his
usual, a work of cavalier brilliance. Murphy, in an improbably ethnic depiction
of his character Chiarelli (one we were later to discover was wildly inaccurate),
had essentially blustered his way to Byron Brown’s direct line. Subtlety is
not Murphy’s forte—he’s a bruiser; pure comic kinesis.

BEAST:
Yeah, this is Bob Chiarelli, mayor of Ottawa…I was supposed to be transferred
to Mr. Brown’s office.

Receptionist
2: Oh, sure, hold on.

Receptionist
1: Thank you for calling the mayor’s office. How may I help you?

BEAST: This
is Bob Chiarelli again—mayor of Ottawa. Is the mayor in?

Receptionist
1: Nnnnoooo, he’s not available at the moment.

BEAST: All
right. You tell him I got a sweet deal for him.

Receptionist
1: Oookayyyy…

BEAST: (Sensing
disbelief) I know we’re already bettin’ chicken wings and everything, but
this one’s a doozey. (Pushily) You sure he’s not in? Get him on the line,
come on! This is gonna be a big series. Big for both cities!

Receptionist
1: Okay, hold on.

[Editors
note: Murphy is put on hold for nearly 2 long minutes, growing certain the faux
Chiarelli character was going nowhere fast ]

Mayor
Brown: This is Byron Brown speaking…

BEAST: Byron!

MB:
Mayor! How are you?

BEAST: I’m
well. How are you?

MB:
I’m doin’ pretty good.

BEAST: Did
you get the package we sent?

MB:
Um, (To staffer) Lorraine, did I get the package that Mayor Chiarelli sent?
(Staffer speaking in background.) I haven’t seen it yet, mayor.

BEAST: Oh,
that is a shame. (Barking at imaginary staffer) You, you get on my package
to Buffalo, immediately!

MB:
(Laughing)

BEAST: We’re
sending you some beavertails—don’t fuhgeddaboutit, fuhgeddaboutit, you know?

MB:
You sent some—

BEAST: We are
gonna have an exciting series, but we got an exciting idea…

MB:
Okay.

BEAST: Are
you ready?

MB:
I’m ready.

BEAST: We’re
gonna sweeten the pot a little bit here.

MB:
Okay…

BEAST: You
wanna guess?

MB:
Umm…

BEAST: What
we talked about a little bit before…

MB: I…I…I can’t—I
can’t guess. Tell me…

BEAST: Uhh,
you know, just uh…I don’t know…I, I talked to my wife about it. Maybe you
could talk to yours. And, uh, I was thinkin’, uh, you know—if we win, I—I
get to bang your wife, you get to bang mine.

BEAST: This
is Mr. Chiarelli. (Playfully) The Senators are gonna crush those Sabres!

MB: Okay…

BEAST: And
uh, you know…How ‘bout this—this wife thing?

MB: Here—well—

BEAST: I’m
kiddin’ with you, Byron! Come on now! (Laughing) You American mayors; you
have no sense of humor, I swear.

MB:
Well, in fact, my wife is right here. Let me let you talk to her about that.

BEAST (Concealing
astonishment): All right!

That’s right:
we suggested a wager which involved “banging” the mayor’s wife, and he decided
to let us ask her about it. He didn’t hang up, or laugh, or shout “What the
fuck did you just say to me?” He handed the phone to his wife.

To be fair, the
mayor probably just wanted to get off the phone—unless we’re underestimating
his sense of adventure. But even if that were true, pawning an unpleasant
call onto his wife was a surprisingly wussy move for young political up-and-comer.
This tendency to conflict avoidance would seem to support the theory that
Brown is more a made man than a self-made man.

Predictably,
the woman behind the man proved less deferential.

Mrs. Mayor:
Hello?

BEAST: Miss
Brown!

MM: Yes?

BEAST: Hi,
this is Bob Chiarelli, mayor of Ottawa! How you doin’?

MM:
I’m doing fine. How can I—

BEAST: This
is, uh—a sensitive subject, but, uh…We’re already tradin’ the chicken wings
and the beavertails, dependin’ on who wins the series. But, you know, me
here in the office—we were thinkin’—you know, maybe we could do a little,
like…Somethin’—a little more exciting, you know?

MM:
Yes?

BEAST: And
I was thinking, like, maybe—I know, you know, you know—not sex right away.
Nothin’ like that, but, uh…if Ottawa wins I get to take you out on a date…

MM:
(Hangs up.)

We
can only imagine the conversations that took place in the wake of this call—what
Mrs. Brown said, at what volume she said it, whether they still believed the
caller to have been Ottawa’s mayor and, if not, whether their receptionist took
a drubbing of her own. Unfortunately, those surely hilarious moments remain
a mystery. At the very least, we have learned that the mayor’s wife is a good
deal smarter than he is.